The Sawdust House

Frederick, MD: Published in America, 2004.

A novel about how settlers in southern Minnesota in mid-19th century cope with a new language, ecology, physical environment to form a lasting community. The background information is almost entirely drawn from letters the author’s forebears wrote back to their families in Norway, from how they caught cod on the Grand Banks to surviving a blizzard that covered their houses in snow to a surprise supply of meat when a herd of deer were frozen into the ice. The author alerted her cousins not to look for the characters in the family album. They, at least, were pure fiction.